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Richard, I appreciate and completely agree with your logic, however, using a logical argument where a female is concerned doesn't particularly make any sense to me, since females base their decisions and actions on emotions, not logic.

My purpose is not to argue a logical point--the purpose is to explain the perception out there, upon which a decision is made. As you well know, a decision is often, and yes, mistakably made through perception and not logic and reality. Particularly for a female.

The perception in this town for the women is that Russian men make bad husbands and Americans make good husbands. True or not. Also, women are greatly outnumbered, and many will in fact never marry due to this fact. Also, they are ignorant of the fact that there are good agencies out there because everything near them is bad. How should they know how many good agencies there are out there??? They simply hear and believe what their friends tell them, and the ulterior motive is to find an American and not take his money, then flee to him away from the agency behind their backs. She says many of her friends have done this. If she knows of nothing else and believes she must marry an American to be happy as her friends have told her, then she will believe she must do things this way, whether logical or not. Females are not logical, and using this reasoning to explain their motives seems a little ridiculous to me.

And no, I would never recommend choosing an agency in this town, but I must also plead ignorance, as I did not know most of the agencies in this town were bad. Also, they had her email me first and I did not choose to contact her. Yes, I was lucky not to lose money, but I believe that there are many honest girls who go to these agencies simply unaware that there are good agencies not run by the mafia. Especially in her town. Also I am just a few years older, not 10 or 15.

I do agree that one goes after the honest agencies only and stays away from the bad ones. But if you should be like me and accidentally happen to bump into an honest girl stuck in a bad agency, don't send her money, but don't dismiss her so easily. I know almost all the people in her agency want love and not money, unaware there are better ways to get it. I have living proof that not all bad agencies have nothing but bad girls in them. Some are just ignorant of the reality.

Zedralf, According to the most currently available data (1999), 911,162 Russian women got married in Russia in that year as cited by
M.B.Denisenko, Emigration from Russia According to Data of Foreign Statistics http://dmo.econ.msu.ru/demografia/Demographie/Mariages/index.html
In the same year, 11078 Russians emigrated to the United States. See Lomonsova Economics Faculty, Moscow State University, Statistics and Accounting of the Migration of Population (Moscow: MAKS Press, 2001), p. 18. To simplify matters lets assume that all 11078 were ladies that married American men through the K-1 visa process. This means that among Russian lady citizens in the Russian Federation, only 1.2% opted to get married to American men. This is the evidentiary basis for my writing that "Isn't it obvious that most Russian girls will simply marry Russian men?"

Your statement that Russian "women are greatly outnumbered, and many will in fact never marry due to this fact" is incorrect because, in the Russian Federation, it is the older cohorts of women in the 40+ age groups and increasingly above that suffer from this sex gap (and I can cite you data in nauseating detail if you insist on my proving it); there are enough younger Russian guys to go around.

You claim to have insight into inner psyche of Russian ladies with statements like the perception in this town is (for example) that "Americans make good husbands," etc. Are you sure you can speak for the perception of the population of the town? To put it kindly, you "evidence" sounds anecdotal i.e. whatever your girlfriend fed you (who may have a stake in giving you a biased impression). You can't scientifically make any of the statements of the kind that you put forward without survey research or at least structured interviews in Russian with a population cross-section.

My final remark is of an entirely different vein reflecting the tone of your comments rather than elements of substance. To put it kindly, Zedralf, you come across as being extremely patronizing to our prospective Russian brides. You maintain that "Females are not logical, and using this reasoning to explain their motives seems a little ridiculous to me." Your arguments reek of a virulent sexism that I believe no self-respecting, educated woman, be she American or Russian, would tolerate. (I didn't take issue with the Russian girl's logic, by the way, I took issue with yours!) I think you have to give them credit for the educational level they achieve and for the esteem for which they hold education and not merely consider them to be gullible and stupid. With your mindset of a false superiority, you are prime meat for being scammed! Take that warning to heart, Zedralf. Richard

Actually, I think a woman's decision making process is vastly superior to that of a man's. And, a Russian's psyche is no different that anyone else's. I said a woman's psyche is based on emotion and man by logic, but this is not to say that logic is superior to emotion. Actually the reverse is the case. Logic itself can be proven illogical if it is applied in this world, which often is illogical itself in many ways. People are made up of intellect and emotion, and both must be taken into account when making a decision. Actually, I think woman are vastly superior to men in many ways. Man's intellect fails because most are unable to satisfy a women's emotional needs, because his supposed logic applies only in theory, and doesn't apply too well in an emotional world. Emotion is what makes the world go around. Logic is often good in theory only.

You statistics may be true or may not be true, but they do not disprove the situation in this girls city. This situation exists indepently of your statistics.

Her city's individual facts are such:
1) Total women outnumber men 8 to 1. Maybe there are more younger men, but there still seemed to be many more young women to me when I was there.
2) Many women in her city and in others flat out refuse to marry a Russian man because they are perceived as not being serious, and many in this particular city are in the Mafia. Of course more people in any country will marry more people in their particular country. That is a given. But, these girls have told me they have excluded Russian men as an option and believe there is something better out there. Of course, some women may hate Americans, but there are those that don't, and since many of the younger women have said they will not consider a Russian man, they may either go to an agency where their girlfriends have told them they have had success, or never get married.
3) I know most Russians are very proud of their country and would rather stay and marry a Russian than leave, but in her city, a lot of the girls outright want to leave. They have said this. In order to leave, it is necessary not to marry a Russian. So, once again, the option is either go to an agency nearby or never marry.

The bottom line is this....there are indeed girls who do not want to be married to Russians, and they must go to agencies to do this or will not be married, and they may not realize at first the agency is a bad one. It is not always so easy to get out and find a good one, especially if you don't have a car and there is not one near you.
You cannot conclude that all bad agencies are full of nothing but bad girls. My point was not to prove that the majority of the girls are good, or the majority of girls don't marry Russian...simply that some of them are good, and some would rather marry foreign or not at all.
And the girl I talk to is one of those people.

You can babble on with all the logic and the statistics you want, and you sould extremely intelligent, and it looks good on paper, but doesn't do much to disprove a real life situation. Real life is based on people and their emotions, not simple logic. That's right, logic is simple, therefore a woman's psyche can be said to be more complex and more superior to a man's. My mindset is not that I am superior to women..it is that women are superior and men are too stupid and "intellectual" to understand a women's emotion needs. Emotion is the foundation of action, while intellect is good often on paper only.

And I'm sure your logic doesn't work so well with the ladies. You sound like one of those guys who spends money on a lady and then wonders why she tries to take you for everything you've got. Women want to have their emotional needs met. Most men can't do it. If you fulfull her emotional needs, you are her knight in shining armor. Every woman, no matter from what country, dreams of such a man since she is a little girl. When old men try to go after 20 year olds for sex and a marriage unhappy for the girl, or try to buy them things to win their love, no wonder some women who are not honest try to scam them. Men like that have no respect for women. They key is to simply to be caring, and gentle, understanding, and supportive to her feelings and emotions. Men don't understand women at all. And, emotion is superior to logic, not the other way around.

The bottom line is, if you were to talk with me, and not try to infer how I am toward women by a few simple sentences, you would find that the fact is you are fodder for scams and not me. Your keen mind and logic will do you a great disservice. You seem to be too involved in intellect and not in emotion, too smug and self-involved. The key is too always look outside of yourself, and live for the women rather than for yourself, and try to understand their emotional base. Your logic will not help you with this, and you assume logic is superior, when it is not.

I HATE TO DO THIS, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO EMPLOY LOGIC FOR A SECOND. The fact is, I WOULD BET ANY AMOUNT OF MONEY you have been scammed at least once before, if not many times, while I am looked at as a knight in shining armor to a girl I accidentally met who happened to be from a bad agency who herself is a very good person. She would rather starve that scam me.
Therefore, logic would dictate that something in your logic is flawed, because your assumed superior knowledge of Russian women has gotten you scammed, while I have not been scammed. What exists, exists, regardless of whether it can be scientifically proven. I don't need to scientifically prove or statistically prove anything. There are good girls in bad agencies, believe me. Any they just want to be married. And not to Russians. I know her and some of her friends can tell you it is true. Give me a break. I'm out of here. I shouldn't even be on this site. I haven't even been scammed.

Men and women hurt each other needlessly because they don't understand each other. If men would only understand a woman and a woman a man, these scams would ultimately not occur. Men and women need to love and understand each other. Men who have been scammed, are ultimately partly to blame for what has happened, because you reap what you sow. Men, go for it, try to find the right woman, and understand her. Stop being so afraid of being scammed. Don't send money, mind you, but don't be afraid to take chances on your emotions. As the Russians say, One who does not take chances does not get to drink the champagne.

I'm not going to respond to Richard's pointless gibberish anymore. Intellectualism strays too much from reality. It's why all those science geeks miss out on life...they are among the brightest, but they don't understand anything, simply how they think they can prove a theory. What nonsense.

For such an articulate man, your thought processes are so surprisingly simple. Such objectivity which may be useful in a science experiment is so useless in this world which happens to be subjective.

I just caught your sentence which I did not catch before, saying you weren't questioning her logic, but questioning mine. Obviously. The point I was trying to make was that you try to attack this whole thing with logic, while a woman does not operate on a logical basis. While you infer this to mean something less than logic, it is actually more complex. Using logic is far too simple to attack a situation with a woman.

I hope you express yourself to a woman better than in this way, but obviously not, because I have a hunch you have been burnt before pretty badly. And a logical argument is not necessary to prove my point, because this is not a science experiment, and it is possible to be correct in such an assumption without having numerous hard facts and useless statistics to illustrate a point. A certain situation can even exist without ANY evidence to back it up, Mr. Scientist. And I'm sure I am right. I know you have been badly burnt before. And I have absolutely no proof. But I'm right.

I just hope for your sake, when you relate to a woman you may see that there is more than just simple logic. Women relate to MORE than logic, not LESS. Since you prefer to speak only in logic, perhaps you cannot see this, and perhaps objectivity and logic is superior to other thinking, but this is true in the scientific community only. Women my age really hate pompous older men who think they know everything. You are obviously quite bit older than me, but I think you would be wise enough to realize younger women hate this pompous, judgmental jibberish.

Therefore, the whole point here is not that women are inferior, quite the opposite. Your argument is too simple for such a situation. Logic is simple and too objective. I don't need to prove my facts scientifically or otherwise. These are simply the thoughts and feelings of a woman and some of her friends in her town. They exist, and justify themselves by their existence. This is no science experiment. Forgive me for repeating myself, but your argument is irritating and your understanding and communication skills are elementary at best. Sure, your logic is top notch, but useless in this situation, as the situation concerns a relationship between a man and a woman which commands understanding and communication, not a simple minded logical argument. In your very eloquent words and well thought out objectivity you mask an extreme lack of subjectivity which is necessary in such a conversation, and may be one of the reasons why you have obviously have been scammed before. Women prefer emotion over intellect, because emotion is more complex and meaningful, not less complex. Emotion is intellect in action. Intellect is just a theory that has not been practiced. You may talk all you want to refute it, but in all your words, you make no point, you simply try to prove some kind of scientific theory, which is useful only in the "lab", and not on the "field" of life.

Someone so self-absorbed in intellect, assuming that I mean to say intellect and logic is better than emotion, has no idea what he is talking about. And, being self-absorbed in intellect, there is no way you can understand women, because you are too simple to understand emotion. Emotion, more simple that intellect??? NO!!!

I will pound this into your brain one more time....

INTELLECT IS SIMPLE THEORY THAT HAS NOT BEEN PUT INTO PRACTICE.
EMOTION IS INTELLECT IN ACTION.
EMOTION IS FAR SUPERIOR TO INTELLECT.

Those who use eloquent words to express their intellect, and particularly those with the mind of a scientist or a dreaded engineer, or a computer geek, exhibit true ignorance on the subject of emotion. And they wonder why they never score with women. Don't understand emotion, and don't understand it is superior, then you don't understand women at all. Therefore, I bet you have been burned before. Don't want to be burned again??? Try to learn emotion and you will learn about women. Most men are intellectually based and have no clue about women. The secret is emotion--intellect in action--and it is superior.

Damn scientists. Their simplicity of thought is so irritating. They appear to be so knowledgable and they believe themselves be more knowledgable then others, but they know much less than they realize. And even more irritating is that they think their scientific method of hypothesis followed by hard proof is so superior in a world that is more complex than that. Existence is often independent of whether it can be proven or not.

A man who can understand emotion and realizes it is more complex, more superior, and more powerful than intellect is a man who has true wisdom. The others might as well just stay in the "lab", because YOU'RE NOT GETTING THE GIRL!!!!!!!!!!

THERE ARE GOOD GIRLS IN BAD AGENCIES!!! THEY ARE NOT ALL BAD!!! Doesn't have to be proven...the fact exists independently of simple logical proof!! Girls in bad agencies have chosen love over money and they don't require logical proof as to why they would do so.

Instead of hurting each other, men and women should try to understand each other. First, try to understand why the hurting is taking place. Then, try to understand each other so they may love each other and not hurt each other any more. Having such a site as this is good, as it protects people from giving away their money, but it is bad, as it perpetuates a hatred and misunderstanding of women, and makes men paranoid of being scammed, further distancing them from the women, while their ultimate goal is to become closer to a woman. They defeat themselves.

Zedralf, Perhaps we have moved beyond the purposes of a forum like this with our discourse, which increasingly manifests personal overtones. Through this site, there is not much point commenting on philosophical issues like the relationship between emotion and intellect. This forum isn?t ?Richard v. Zedraf ? Man of Reason v. Man of Emotion? and, if it were, I doubt whether it would have much of a readership.

However, it would be of interest for everybody -- I think -- to know the city about which you know so much. Of course, there are always exceptions to general rules: like Russian girls generally marry Russian men in Russia. Kherson, Ukraine, for instance, is reported to have an imbalance in the female to the male population to the detriment of the latter. The reason for this I understand is that the men went away to work in other locales. So to which city do you refer? Is there a real need for you to keep its identity a secret? Wouldn't forum members the world over benefit from knowing its identity: either to avoid its scam agencies there on the one hand or to benefit from the high young women to young man ratio on the other? Or would your girlfriend's safety and security be jeopardized by the mafia?

Of course, you know your lady personally and she too may be an exception. On that score, you know better than anyone else.

I think that you really can't infer how I relate to ladies on the basis of how I expressed my conclusions concerning an issue of fact ("Do Russian ladies overwhelmingly marry Russian men?") on this website. That's illogical (sorry to have used a word so odious to you) and does me a disservice.

It sounds like you have a lot of aggression (a curious hatred of science?) in you that you're releasing in my direction when you use an expression like "pound it into your brain" or make a scornful reference like "Mr. Scientist" or ?babbling on.? (I'm a lawyer, not a scientist, by the way.) Such vituperative only detracts from your argument. I took issue with certain statements you made and certain conclusions you drew, and some flaws in logic -- not with you personally. You may be a top-flight lad. I don?t know. I don?t know you.

I have made 11 trips to the ex-USSR in the last three years. I almost always have had a good time over there and I have a lot of practical experience. I really put my university Russian to good use in that regard as I am pretty much able to discuss anything in Russian -- a skill that is a great advantage and that helps to avoid a lot of difficulties. (I don't claim to speak for girls from any particular location in the ex-USSR, however.) I'm lucky to have met some really nice girls. I have a lot of choices for a life partner --maybe too many as it makes for some hard decision-making.

By the way, you would have lost that bet, had we shaken hands on it, about my being scammed. I never have been.

I don't think, by the way, this is a website just for people who have been scammed. It is at least partly a website for sharing ideas and experiences that may help people avoid being scammed in the future or simply for advice to better enjoy their stay in a CIS-country. People with experience or more experience can help those new on board (or simply with less experience) searching for companionship in the ex-USSR.

If you find my comments without merit, no need to respond to them. Don?t waste your time. Perhaps someone else will profit from what I have written and that would be reward enough for having written them.

Dear men, I'm Russian, my husband is American, we have got acquainted through the Internet too.
I advise for you if you have met the girl which can kindle your heart, you'll plan your meeting as soon as possible.

If your first meeting will be in her city, it is the best variant. If you plan meeting in the other city or other country, then you have to understand her and pay her residing and her transporting too. You can to buy trip for her by the Internet and tickets too. Also you can tell, that you will give money for her at our meeting. I think, if the girl is right and she really wants to see you she will find money for some time and after your meeting she can return this money.Many women have no free money for trip. Only when you will start to legalize documents for fiancee-visa , you can start to help her and to send money.
Remember, she is your future wife. Good luck for you!

Zedralph
I have one as you mentioned.It seemed at first it was headed for a scam.She sent many letters and photos.Some obvious form letters.I think i got behind the BS though she kind of backed off.I then laied it to her knowing what was going on and i would help her if she would talk to me as real person.She e mails back refusing help.But says she started this as scam but truly fell in love and couldnt do it.She said it was obvious i was not going to send money.She is actually a very sweet girl with nothing better to do a hard life and nobody that actually cares for her.We now communicate but she writes for real broken english and all.She knows i will not send money but loves to have someone that will write to her as real person and show her some respect........ Jimmy the rose